Houyhnhnm Land

David Edgerton

Although I have discussed the paper here a few times in the past, including in one of this blog’s first-ever posts, this post will revisit David Edgerton’s argument in “‘The Linear Model’ Did Not Exist” (available in .rtf format via his website @ #49, and published in The Science-Industry Nexus: History, Policy, Implications, Karl Grandin, Nina Wormbs, and Sven Widmalm, eds., 2004; hereafter GWW).

The “linear model” is a very specific claim stating that basic scientific research in universities (or other non-profit institutions) contributes to national economy and security by producing new knowledge, which can then be translated into new technological applications.  Edgerton’s argument that it “did not exist” is that it is an idea that has been held, in a strict sense, by few, if any, actors, and that it has been concocted as a straw man by individuals purporting to offer a superior alternative.  I believe continued discussion of Edgerton’s argument is needed because the reasoning underlying its claims is not obvious, it is now being used productively in new work such as Sabine Clarke’s, and because it has broader historiographical significance.

Much difficulty may be caused by the problem of what it means for an idea to “exist” in history: how well does a historian’s articulation of an idea have to map on to the actual idea in order to claim that it existed?

For instance, at HSS last November, one participant (at the special session on John Krige’s American Hegemony book on the reconstruction of science in postwar Europe) held that Edgerton’s view that “the linear model did not exist” was absurd in that arguments for basic scientific research as leading to new technologies was prevalent, especially in the postwar period.  I forget who said this, but the idea is also expressed in David Hounshell’s comment on “Did Not Exist” in GWW.

In this view, to say that basic research was merely linked to technological development qualifies as an expression of the “linear model”; it is not necessary to say that there was a direct relationship between a research result and its technological implementation.  What seems to be the bottom line of qualification here is not the specificity of the model, but that it was used polemically as a justification to initiate new funding of basic research.  This justification was essentially a promise that the research would, in some sense, result in future technological advance.

This interpretation causes a problem, though, because the implication is that the linear model was a specious justification — a self-serving rationalization designed to garner public (or, in the case of industrial research labs, corporate) funding for work that had no necessary economic benefit.  However, to ascribe the status of rationalization to the idea is almost necessarily to presume the strictest version of the model.  But (as Dan Kevles pointed out at the aforementioned HSS meeting) the mere point that technology developers can make productive use out of recent research is practically a truism.

The upshot here is that, depending on one’s interpretation of what the linear model means, historical claims can range from truism to cynical and specious self-justification.  Clearly, then, much depends on what specific views historical actors held.  The difficulty is that historical actors saw no need to theorize explicitly and in detail about the relationship.  We must read their views from their proposals and their rhetoric.  Let us go to the canonical case.

As Edgerton detailed, Vannevar Bush’s published report to the President, Science: The Endless Frontier (1945), is often cited as an important expression of the linear model on account of its advocacy for federal funding for basic, university-based research on the basis of its importance for further technological progress.  Reference to the model allowed Bush to countenance a major violation of the tradition of federal non-involvement in university life.

However, one must willfully read a linear model into Bush’s phraseology, because nowhere did he state that basic research results are necessarily the immediate source of new technologies and applications.  The more likely reading is the weaker truism that scientific research simply makes new developments possible, perhaps as a kind of catalyst in the process of technological improvement.  Bush, remember, was himself an academic engineer, and would have understood intuitively the function of knowledge in technological work.

Reading Bush’s words against the spectrum of views described in Clarke’s recent Isis article, he seems to have been thinking of basic research somewhat along the prewar lines of Richard Gregory, wherein basic research provides a kind of pool of primordial intellectual resources, which were at that time being increasingly drawn upon in the advance of technical work:

Basic research leads to new knowledge. It provides scientific capital. It creates the fund from which the practical applications of knowledge must be drawn. New products and new processes do not appear full-grown. They are founded on new principles and new conceptions, which in turn are painstakingly developed by research in the purest realms of science.

However, Bush also seems to have been fully aware of the day-to-day independence of industrial and military “research and development” — geared specifically toward the improvement of existing technologies — from “basic research” activities.  (One would hope, given his wartime experience as head of OSRD, which oversaw decidedly non-basic research.)  Beyond that distinction, Bush likewise recognized the peculiar role of longstanding research programs in civilian government agencies, using language more-or-less echoing that used (per Clarke) to describe work in the British DSIR.  Bush:

Much of the scientific research done by Government agencies is intermediate in character between the two types of work commonly referred to as basic and applied research. Almost all Government scientific work has ultimate practical objectives but, in many fields of broad national concern, it commonly involves long-term investigation of a fundamental nature. Generally speaking, the scientific agencies of Government are not so concerned with immediate practical objectives as are the laboratories of industry nor, on the other hand, are they as free to explore any natural phenomena without regard to possible economic applications as are the educational and private research institutions. Government scientific agencies have splendid records of achievement, but they are limited in function.

Bush’s report was ultimately very ambiguous in describing the nature of “basic research”, industrial “research and development”, as well as the in-between work pursued in government agencies, and especially in describing the nature of the relationship between these categories.  This ambiguity should not be taken as a license to ascribe a naive linear model to him.  The only thing we can affirmatively ascribe to him, as far as basic research is concerned, is the view that basic research is simply important to the progress of technical development, that without it technical development, in the long run, may not be able to proceed past a certain point.

To say that the linear model did not exist is to liberate us to ask further questions, which cannot be answered by textual exegesis, but only by examining how Bush actually managed various activities in basic research, and in industrial and military research and development, working as director of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, as chair of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, as director of the committee structure of the wartime OSRD, and the postwar Research and Development Board.  It is clear, for example, that Bush did not derive his budget proposals for his proposed National Research Foundation from any sort of correlation between university funding and expected economic output, but rather from “studies by the several committees” which provided “a partial basis for making an estimate of the order of magnitude of the funds required to implement the proposed program.”  We have little idea of how these “studies” were conducted and integrated into recommendations, but they clearly point to a more sophisticated point-of-view than we would garner from being satisfied by describing Bush’s ideas simply in terms of the “linear model” divined from his rhetoric.

In a follow-up post, we will look at the persistent difficulties in finding a role for basic research in industrial organizations, wherein it will be emphasized that a lack of clear policy is not adequately described in terms of adherence to a linear model.

Harriet Martineau, philosopher, essayist, novelist, advocate for women

Emma goldman, 20th century philosopher, reformer, feminist

Emma goldman Bibliography, books and articles by and about Goldman

Footnotes Barbon article about Gabrielle Suchon

Bibliography Suchon article

Gabrielle Suchon Steve Barbone's article: Third Way Beyond Gender

I believe that ecumenical dialogue is important. For one thing, the current divisions of the Church are not just a shame but a sin. For another thing, I think that Timothy Ware is correct in claiming that God intended for differing perspectives between different linguistic and cultural groups, and also between differing tastes and focuses to balance each other out. Instead (and let me, as a Protestant, admit that the Reformation only made this worse), we tend to congregate with people who think like us and look like us and talk like us and want the same styles of preaching...

Toward a more precise and brief exposition of the concept the Gentile Christian.

It was decided by Paul and the disciples (Acts 15) that it was a fact that the rule of love of neighbor was sufficient for the identification of all good acts. In the context of the understanding at that time (always a consideration) we would expect to see among the Christians model marriages and families, model employers and employees, model neighborhoods, model government.

The conditions for a happy marriage may be different now, but that means merely a different action ensuing from the same principle of the expedient application of the rule of love. One principle and two different actions, both derived from that principle under the guidance of one’s current understanding of the world.

Paul considered same-sex sex as domination, perhaps, as one male dog will hump another male to show dominance. As such it was reprehensible and reflected the spirit of hell. It could not have been natural in his thinking, of course, for then a benevolent nature would have wanted to produce more babies to account for the many deaths. So obviously it was a domination and rebellion against the very laws of nature itself (i.e., in his thinking, where the laws of nature work for the good of the humans in the production of children).

Today the situation is far different. Or rather, our understanding of sexuality is from a different perspective, namely from a world that has too many babies. Now that same benevolent nature would give us people who could enjoy each other without restraint and never have the first child, and never need recourse to all the artificial devices of birth control, the drugs and surgeries and even self restraint. Suppose homosexuals were in all other respect indistinguishable from the majority of the population who find the opposite sex more attractive. Suppose they were just like the left handers of this world, and were morally no better and no worse than these left handers. Wouldn’t we just jump for joy and call God’s blessing upon the homosexual and ask God to give us more? Must we still crucify the gifts of God? The straights have screwed up the world and God has given us a non-domineering same-sex sex, i.e., homosexuality, which, if promoted, can help save the world from over population.

The “necessary things” (Acts 15:29) were a clarification of the meaning of the follower of Jesus among the gentiles. They were to defer to the Jewish Christians at the table and they were to exercise self control as a signal of their allegiance to the Lord Jesus. This was the self restraint of the gentile Christian: being prepared (under control) and sensitive to the weakness of fellows on the path of the Lord, especially those following the “right” foot print of Jesus as Jews.

In a word: in all sincerity the gentile Christians were to apply the rule of love in their present condition, and be especially mindful of others on the Way (especially if a different foot print) and be always prepared to represent the Lord Jesus.

In this wise then the Council of Jerusalem gave the OK for Paul’s experiment with the gentiles, in making them followers of Jesus apart from the Jewish culture, i.e., lawless and beholden to the rule of love alone as totally sufficient and without need for supplementation.

Note: All this comports nicely with the lesson of John 5, namely that no interpretation of a communication of God may inhibit an immediate act of love.

Mr. President,

First of all I hope you are doing well. We are doing better and a lot of the credit goes to you.

Here is a smart tactic that will work. We have health care reform, but we need to understand better why we have it and especially why we have mandated that all Americans take part.

The fundamental principle of our union is this: we agree to live together in a free realm (like that conceived by Immanuel Kant). The first principle of that realm is that all people are equally endowed with dignity and respect. This is Kant’s mighty moral law that impels us ever toward perfection in our existence. That is the great given. What within those universal and categorical bounds are we trying to accomplish in a union together? We want, all of us, to live freely without external restraint and we agree to guarantee to all of us that our rights, given by God, may be restrained only universally (and not for just some of us), and that we have to agree by majority vote as to what those restraints might be. With regard to foreign relations and dangers we agree to bind together and be a single people and pledge ourselves ready for defensive duty if called upon. [This is not unlike a marriage where before the law is there is a singularity and no division.] We have a duty to each other to help ward off any restraint of our liberty by a foreign power. This now leads to health care.

We cannot expect to continue as a free people, making our own destiny in freedom, unless we are militarily strong and well educated and creative and productive and healthy. Our military readiness is in good order and we are well served. But we are not so well served by our health care, not well enough to be ready for the challenges that we face today for ourselves and for our children and for all who will live in our free realm. Consistent with our need for a better health as a nation, we will now impose a tax upon ourselves for the express purpose of making health care available to all people at no cost to the individual but only to the society. This is what health insurance is all about. We agree to pay up front and we do it as a society by means of a self-imposed compulsion. We will tax ourselves in the name of our common security from foreign advance and then say to our citizens, “Look, in the pursuit of happiness you will find little that is more important than good health. But even more importantly we need to be healthy for our security in this competitive and dangerous world. Now you can go to the doctor (at no charge to you*) and he will advise you how to get better health. It’s up to you then and upon your confidence in the doctor. The point is you really ought to go to the doctor now and then in order to be more healthy and thus better help us all together as a free nation to be on owr toes and in shape and ready for whatever may be coming at us.”

[* I am ignoring any co-pay and am focusing on the brunt of the doctor’s bill which will now be born by the entire society via the mandate.]

So, Mr. President, you can reach across the isle and give credit to the Republicans for suggesting this justification of the mandate (and its like jury duty too) and accordingly proclaim the mandate to be bipartisan and an example of how you are willing to accept a good idea once it is fleshed out.

In this way, I think, you could score a few points and catch the Republicans off guard, and find greater solidarity with the conservatives, be willing to accept many of their principles, e.g., legalizing medicinal marijuana. You ought simply to do this. Call for the rationalization of medicine but letting the doctor decide with the patient. Let the doctor be given all the facts of this drug and of his patient and then prescribe what he thinks is best regard bodily and mental health. Furthermore you might then also agree and side with the (true) conservatives with the recognition of the same-sex marriage. As we should get the government out of the doctor’s office with regard to therapy, we should also get the government of the driver’s seat with regard to marriage. The concept of the marriage is two free people who enter into a union of total identity with each other and with respect to others. It is a restriction of rights to say to the world that these two people have to be of the opposite sex. It would be like saying that two left handers could not get married. Imagine that. Two people who write with their left hands cannot get married. Or two people of different color. Or two people of different hair color, or all this never ending involvement in the lives of two people. This really ought to expand to include more than two people in communes (and this is a bit risky, I suppose), but let’s keep it at two until the divorce rate approaches 0, and we might decide it is more practical always to keep it at two. We are a free people. We decide together what shall bind us all. Either we will have a marriage of two people, or we will have no marriage at all, for we cannot restrain the rights of just some, but only of all together.

So let’s take what is intelligent and right for us our and our future in our common liberty, and let’s pull together and insure that our liberty shall continue and be an alternative for all people.

There is a logic which derives the health insurance/tax mandate from the commerce clause of the Constitution, but a more powerful logic can be developed in the name of national defense.